Forum: Civil and General Aviation

I wonder how much work is being done at Boeing and Airbus on a new SST design. The Concorde was a loser because it only loaded a 100 souls and it had to use fighter engines in afterburer to achieve top speed. I think the engines were a derivative of the early Mirage engine if I'm not mistaken. The thing is, with modern composite and super-efficient engine technologies, the SST should actually be a viable issue now, even with rising fuel costs. I would think that a composite 250 seat SST with say, F119 derivative engines could be built. Right? Wrong?

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As glamorous and cosmic and way cool as supersonic travel is, SST won't be addressed until a profitable market is designed for it. And we all know what state the airlines are in nowadays.

Concorde was priced out of the mainstream purely on price, and lasted as long as it did with help from the French and British governments.

There's also environmental aspects involved. Within the borders, SST would have to fly on restricted, supersonic-approved routes for noise abatement and even then it wouldn't be able to go supersonic for very long. So why bother? It's best avenue is overseas routes leaving from coastal airports (JFK, LAX, BOS, PDX, SFO) where it can get over water quickly and the stretch its legs, supercruise to a descent point, then slow to subsonic for the approach.

Is there a profitable market for that kind of profile? Sadly, not now, but perhaps in the next 10 to 20 years.

Quote:

I think the engines were a derivative of the early Mirage engine if I'm not mistaken

I am afraid you are mistaken..As far as I know,Concordes RR&SNECMA Olympus engines were based on Bristol Siddeleys engines which powered the subsonic strategic bomber Vulcan..They were 100% British design..But Synpa777 can answer this better..

Some info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Olympus

Vulcan: Engines : 4 Bristol Siddeley Olympus 101, 102 or 104
Concorde: Engines: 4 Rolls-Royce/SNECMA Olympus 593 Mrk610 turbojet

Source: Google.com

Duplex, Ryan, right on. Also Asif. The last Vulcan Olympus engines were the 301s. This was basically a a 201 engine with an extra Low pressure compressor stage. Power could be wound up to 20,000lb X 4, although they usually ran at 18,000lbs thrust, only being cranked up to 20,000 on operations. The most powerful fitted to the Tin Triangle as it was known to it`s aircrew.

The Concordes engines were highly advanced versions of the engine with afterburners called Olympus 593 Mrk610 turbojets. Made by RR and SNECMA. With re-heat, thrust was about 38,000lbs. SNECMA provided the afterburner and exhaust section.

It is interesting to note that the afterburners were NOT needed after the Concorde pushed through Mach 1.7 or .8.
I think that the SST debate is a difficult one still.. If the cost of butts on seats cannot be brought down significantly, and sonic boom can`t be eliminated! I can`t really see a successful SST flying in the near future.
Only in business jet form. That seems possible.

There are studies being made for a business SST. I know that Sukhoi is involved together with an American consortium, so far they provided only some computer generated images. I guess the Russians have some experience in this domain (Tu-144) and they even proposed in the 60's a "transport" version of the MiG-25 with a stretched fuselage for up to 6 passengers-it was intended for use by high-ranking officers and was intended to cruise at Mach 2.35-they only made a scale model however-I guess it was impractical to built.

Enthusiast Joined: Nov 21, 2005 - 12:24 AM Posts: 65

Soon will start the development of a SST BizJet, from Gufstream in parnersihp with LM, and possible Cessna.

8pax m 2.0 3200nm range supersonix, 5400nm high transonic (m .95)

A supersonic Cessna? WHAT is the world comin' to? Laughing

A six passenger Mig-25 is even stranger! but boy, what a ride that would have been! Laughing

LinkF16SimDude wrote:

A supersonic Cessna? WHAT is the world comin' to? Laughing

Citation X tops out at .92 Mach on the books, I have talked to people who have had them faster without effort - particularly in a mountain wave over the rockies at flight idle, level flight.

RoAF wrote:

There are studies being made for a business SST. I know that Sukhoi is involved together with an American consortium, so far they provided only some computer generated images. I guess the Russians have some experience in this domain (Tu-144) and they even proposed in the 60's a "transport" version of the MiG-25 with a stretched fuselage for up to 6 passengers-it was intended for use by high-ranking officers and was intended to cruise at Mach 2.35-they only made a scale model however-I guess it was impractical to built.

Yeah, but the Russian's experience with the "Concordski" (Tu-144) didn't turn out so well. Wink

http://www.alexisparkinn.com/photogallery/Videos/2006-3-3_tu144crash.asx

True. It ended up carrying mail from Moscow to central Asian Soviet republics and the Russian far east! But in the late 90's one of them was made airworthy, re engined with the power plants of the Tu-160 with US financing (NASA?) and used for high altitude, hi-speed research. Anyone knows if it still flies?

Forum: Civil and General Aviation

New SST?